SQUELCH! Tap, tap, tap. "Is this thing on?" I have had enough! No more second banana, man behind the scenes. I have hijacked this issue of Cher Ami from Publisher Craig Taylor. No ramblings about lost toy subs in some nameless farmer's pond, no stories of years spent sponging off of the tax payers as a military brat and no references to obscure relatives and, most of all, no "Unca Craig". But as many revolutionaries have found, the revolution was easy, actually ruling is the hard part. To simplify the ruling, I left Craig's other articles in place and I'll let him resume work on the next issue. But, for now, I want to give my own slant on our quaint little company.

The last six weeks was a whirlwind of activity here, with major conventions: Origins, Historicon, and WBC on practically alternate weekends. Meanwhile, many of us maintain normal jobs and were trying to replace depleted stocks in between road trips. Manning the booths were Becky and Brian. At Origins, between them, they demonstrated our new TASK FORCES AT WAR™ about 500 times and actually managed to "wear out" one of our coated decks (it took over 300 plays to get one card "dinged" with a folded corner). At these conventions, we also released our new games GALACTIC EXPANSE™: STARSHIP BATTLES, ENEMY IN SIGHT™ and PANZER® PaK 4, as well as the entire re-release of the five sets in the BATTLELINES®: Stalingrad Campaign.

We demonstrated every game in our line at one time or another at Origins and Craig ran SERGEANTS!™ – In Miniature and Brian Robinette ran a NAPOLEON'S BATTLES™ for us at Historicon. We sponsored four tournaments at WBC. Craig ran three heats + finals SERGEANTS!™ and BRAWLING BATTLESHIPS™ STEEL tournaments, Jeff ran a two heat + finals BATTLEGROUP™ tournament and Neal Schlaffer ran a two heat + finals ENEMY IN SIGHT™ tournament. It was my first time at WBC and I had a great time. In addition to demonstrating GALACTIC EXPANSE™, BATTLELINES®: Streets of Stalingrad, and BATTLEGROUP, I enjoyed playing in the SETTLERS OF CATAN™ tournament. Also playing in that tournament were Julia and Michael Billings, respectively Jeff's mother and newly commissioned son. On Saturday evening, five of us settled down to a relaxing (!) game of DIPLOMACY™, with Michael and yours truly collecting the collective win.

If you didn't make WBC, but want to pretend that you did, we still have available the customizable tee shirts from the convention available at our website. Just pick one to three pieces of game box art and we will do the rest.

Philip H. Gardocki III
Lost Battalion Games Webmaster

AYE, I LIKES THE CUT OF YER JIB!

ENEMY IN SIGHT™

SAILING ACTION CARD GAME

Beat to quarters! Clear for action! Trim the rigging to battle sails! Run out the big guns! Arrgghh, Matey! There's an ENEMY IN SIGHT™ , broadsides to be fired, prizes to be taken and fun to be had in this exciting card game of chance and skill depicting the age of fighting sail. John Paul Jones and Lord Nelson sail the seas again on your gaming table in this easy-to-learn recreation of 18th and 19th Century naval combat suitable for the entire family. HMS Victory, USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides"), USS Constellation – they made naval history and they're all here from the mighty ships of the line to the fast and nimble frigates. Break the enemy line, rake their bow or stern, set them afire and pull alongside and board through the smoke to take home a valuable "prize". Blockades, fire ships, running aground and the weather gauge all play a role in a constantly-evolving naval battle reminiscent of Horatio Hornblower and "Lucky Jack" Aubrey at their audacious best. So board your "ragwagon", pace the quarterdeck, join the fleet and sail off for high adventure. This game is a re-release of the popular Avalon Hill title with upgraded, full-color graphics and high quality cards. The game is recommended for two to eight players and ages 10 and up. Playing time is two to three hours.

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THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE – PART 3

THE INITIAL ADVANCES OF SIXTH PANZER ARMY

This issue of the Cher Ami Newsletter continues our series of articles about the "Battle of the Bulge".

All along the front, starting in the darkest hours of the night, carefully preregistered German artillery crashed into American defensive positions. After an hour of bombardment, the German tanks and infantrymen swarmed forward as giant searchlights played their beams on low clouds to create "artificial moonlight". Atrocious weather precluded much air activity during the early days of the offensive, so the issue was to be decided by the men on the ground.

In the far north of the offensive, Sepp Dietrich's Sixth Panzer Army attacked elements of General Leonard Gerow's United States V Corps. Dietrich opted to lead with his infantry to punch a hole in the American lines before committing his armor. Assaults by the German 272nd and 326th Volksgrenadier divisions failed to gain much ground from the U. S. 78th Infantry Division and 102nd Cavalry Group. The main attack caught the veteran United States 2nd Infantry Division passing through the green United States 99th Infantry Division to continue an ongoing American attack. Caught seriously off-balance, the Americans nevertheless skillfully fought off the German 12th Volksgrenadier, the 277th Volksgrenadier and the panzergrenadiers (infantry) of the 12th SS Panzer divisions, delaying them in a series of battles centered on the villages of Rocherath and Krinklet. With German presuure increasing and threatened with encirclement, the two American infantry divisions gradually fell back to the town of Elsenborn and then to nearby Elsenborn Ridge by the 19th. Joined there by the arriving United States 1st and 9th Infantry divisions, the V Corps held off all further German assaults. The skillfull fighting retreat and final solid defense here blocked the German drive on Liege, Belgium, the shortest route to the Meuse River.

South of Elsenborn, Peiper's Panzer Brigade of the 1st SS Panzer Division, with over 100 tanks and self-propelled guns, many of them the huge and dreaded Tigers, slipped through the thin American lines and advanced into the American rear area, followed at a distance by the rest of the 1st SS Panzer Division and, after their relief further north by the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division, by the 12th SS Panzer Division. Oberst (= Colonel) Friedrich Heydte's paratroopers, hopelessly spread out after a night drop on December 16/17, still led to additional confusion in this critical area. The 150th Panzer Brigade was also later fed into this confused fighting.

The 150th Panzer Brigade, although commanded by SS Obersturmbannfuhrer (= Lieutenant Colonel) Otto Skorzeny, was a normal army unit of low strength and combat value. What it did have was English-speaking soldiers, captured American vehicles and German vehicles painted to look like American ones. Although the unit's combat career was short and ineffective, it spread its share of confusion. Jeep loads of English-speaking German soldiers infiltrated the American lines, removing and changing road signs, ambushing convoys and even managed to worry the headquarters guards protecting Eisenhower himself. This relative handful of German operatives caused the Americans to set up hundreds of road blocks where soldiers were forced to prove they were Americans by answering who was the girlfriend of Mickey Mouse and what baseball team featured Joe Dimaggio (who was in the service himself in 1944). When captured, these Germans were shot as spies.

Hitler also called for a "wave of terror" to sow confusion in the Allied ranks. The SS (= "Schutzstaffeln" = "Protection Squads") originally formed a small but politically reliable bodyguard for Hitler but, by 1944, literally constituted an army within an army in the German war machine. Although many of the dozens of SS units were drawn from foreign rabble, nazi sympathizers and turncoats and were of low or indifferent quality, the seven SS Panzer divisions, five of which were on the Western Front, were usually considered to be "elite" units with high morale and the most and best equipment. At age 29, Joachim Peiper was a veteran SS commander with a particularly ruthless reputation from the Soviet Front and the Waffen SS (= "Armed SS") troops in all their panzer and panzergrenadier divisions were especially brutal. The SS advances were leaving trails of executed American prisoners and Belgian civilians in their wake, the most notorious incident veing the infamous "Malmedy Massacre". As word of these atrocities spread, American anger grew and some units vowed to take no prisoners in SS uniforms, which led to some particularly nasty struggles in the weeks to come.

In a classic "blitzkreig" (= "lightning war"), crushing small units and going around larger ones, Peiper's Brigade led the German advance, at one point forcing the evacuation of Hodge's United States First Army headquarters at Spa. Advancing along multiple roads with various spearheads, Peiper's force repeatedly ran afoul of varied resistance from isolated engineer units at roadblocks, blown bridges across unfordable waterways and vicious organized resistance in strong defensive positions held by regular American combat outfits. Making it as far as Stoumont before running out of gasoline, Peiper found himself separated from the other SS units in a position that was nearly surrounded and endlessly blasted by the excellent American artillery. Worse, the SS troops were relentlessly attacked by elements of the United States 3rd Armored, 30th Infantry (also busy hunting down Heydte's paratroopers) and 82nd Airborne divisions. After heavy fighting, the German spearhead was largely destroyed. Peiper and 800 of his men finally escaped only by abandoning all their vehicles and heavy equipment and walking back to the German lines. This all but ended the independent offensive by the German Sixth Panzer Army. By December 21, the original German plan had failed.

Continued Next Month...

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TASK FORCES AT WAR

RECOMMENDED FOR DADS AND LADS

TASK FORCES AT WAR is a 64-card, diceless, two-player introductory card game designed to be both easy to learn and quick to play. It is an excellent game for a parent to use to introduce children to the fascinating hobby of war games or to expose an unsuspecting friend to the joys of historical gaming. The game is based on World War Two (1939 – 1945) naval combat, when fleets combined battleship firepower with bombing strikes from aircraft carriers. It looks great; using the same full-color pictures of American, British, French, German, Italian and Japanese capital ships of the Second World War that were used in BATTLEGROUP, and is backed up by the same informative Ships of BATTLEGROUP articles at our website. The game system allows players to deploy "task forces" of warships from their hands. Comparisons of the ships deployed in the opposing task forces determine if they will engage in a carrier battle, a surface battle or an air-surface battle. One player commands the Axis fleet, one player commands the Allied fleet and the side that scores the most victory points by "sinking" enemy vessels wins a hand. Win two hands and you win the game, although this is easier said than done! Every playing is different and playing time for a game is easily under one hour. Components include an Allied Ship Deck, an Axis Ship Deck, and the rules. The game retails for only $9.95.

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THE GIRL SCOUTS AND THE MARINES

By S. Craig Taylor, Jr.

In the late 1960s, when I was attending college in the "48", the rest of my family was living in the Philippines, as my father was stationed at Clark Field when he wasn't TDY to Thailand or South Vietnam. My kid sister was in high school over there and a member of the Girl Scouts. This is her cold war story, although her connection with the military was only as an Air Force dependent. In her adult years, she has chosen to collect her combat scars as an elementary school teacher.

The Girl Scouts, when they are not selling their cookies, occasionally go on camp outs. On this occasion they were camped across a wide but shallow creek from some civilian, Filipino, homes and separated by some thick trees from the encampment of a battalion of U. S. Marines who were in the Philippines resting after an arduous tour in Vietnam. Apparently there were strike-you-dead type orders restricting the Leathernecks from the trees, as most of these men were only a few years older than the more senior Girl Scouts and had not so much as talked to an American woman in months, but they kept strictly to their own campground.

One morning, the Girl Scouts awoke to find that most of their laundry, left on clothes lines overnight, was missing. Complaining to the powers that be, word went out to the Marines to provide a guard detail for the Girl Scouts. This must have been one of those rare occasions when the rule to never volunteer went by the wayside and apparently there was no difficulty in rounding up a squad to move to the Girl Scout's campground for their protection. Who was supposed to guard the young ladies from the Marines is anybody's guess.

While the Grunts guarded the tents, the girls went some distance from their camp for their daily activities. Later that day, it started to rain and by the time the girls were under canvas, they were pretty wet. They used some clothes line strung under canvas to hang their Girl Scout berets to dry. The Marines had moved into the tents to get out of the rain also, and everybody was drinking hot cocoa and making nice as the Marines got to talk to some authentic American girls.

When the rain stopped, everybody came back outside and discovered all the berets had been stolen. Across the river, they could be seen hanging from lines around one of the Filipino buildings. I guess the thieves figured that they had nothing to fear from the girls and didn't even try to cover their tracks. What the thieves hadn't reckoned on was that they had crossed some very tough combat veterans.

Apparently the honor of the legendary Corps was on the line and the toughest-looking sergeant any of the girls had ever seen was dispatched to the camp. He chewed out the camp guards, lined them up, inspected them and checked their equipment just like he would in preparation for a patrol in the boondocks of "The Nam". Then, they formed into a line assault formation and plunged into the shallow creek, heading for the civilian settlement.

One can only assume that one of the thieves in the building in question looked out and spotted a group of the finest assault troops in the world making an amphibious landing in his back yard. Over a dozen people came pouring out of the doors and windows heading for the high lonely like so many roaches after turning on a light. All the stolen items were recovered and returned to the fair American maidens and there were no further incidents for the remainder of the campout.

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